THE OLDEST AMERICAN CITY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3796, 14 September 1883, Page 4

THE OLDEST AMERICAN CITY.

Santa F6 is tlio oldest city in the United States. It was discovered 300 years ago by the all-conquering Spaniards, who enslaved tho Indian inhabitants, and adopted and retained their style of architeetnre —one that is admirably .suited to the climate and surroundings, for mud walls cost little and last long- in this beautiful, dry, and invigorating atmosphere. Many of the present buildings datu from tho Spanish occupation. In 1881 there wore but few stone or brick structures. A large hotel, painfully modern, was in process of erection, and, with railway development, there can be no doubt that Santa Fe, tho centre of a rich mining region, will soon lose much of its quaint pieturesqueness, to which the mixture of population adds greatly. Its dusty streets, separated from tho narrow cobble footway by a flowing gutter, arc thronged with gaily-dressed Mexican ladies in_ modern attire, some smoking tiny cigarettes. There, with swift sinuous motion, glides a Spanish senorita, her long, black, and gracefully-clinging garments trailing indiscriminately through dust and mire, her head covered with a long, black head-dress, hardly suited to the climate ; or a Mexican in full national dress, magnificent ns to breadth of chest but weak as to limbs, swaggers along, his short braided petticoat fluttering in tho breeze. A round, embroidered cap surmounts his long, straight, black hair, a gay sash supports heavy silver-mounted pistols and yataghan, and his whole get-up resembles that of a Montenegrin or stage brigand. At the street corners, or under tho piazza of their abode,?, swarthy half - breeds crouched on _ their haunches, tho women, generally wrinkled crones, looking as though they were at least a century'"old. A full-blooded Indian in mocassins and fringed blanket loiters along, offering turquoises in their rocky matrix for sale. All these novel types may bo seen in the course of a day's stroll_ in this most interesting of American cities, which seems to belong to another epoch and another world.—Leisure Hour.